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Québec National Art Museum Names Carl Trahan 2nd Winner of Contemporary Art Award

On Tuesday, the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec announced that the artist Carl Trahan will receive its second biennial contemporary art award.

Created to encourage emerging artists in Québec, the award’s prize amounts to about $100,000. It includes a $10,000 grant, a retrospective publication, and the museum’s acquisition of his works, which is valued at $50,000. Trahan will also have the opportunity to organize a solo exhibition, which is scheduled for the spring of 2017.

The two juries that reviewed the nominees were impressed with the way Trahan’s work has reinvented itself in recent years by examining questions around history, language, and translation. Director and chief curator at the museum, Line Ouellet, said that upon returning from living in Berlin for six years, Trahan “has brought back a stimulating reflection on his encounter with another culture by revisiting, in a unique manner, topics in history and science using a structured artistic vocabulary, but one which reveals the overthrow of reason.”

The award was made possible through a $400,000 gift from the Royal Bank of Canda in 2013. The Royal Bank will be partnering with the institution to present the award until 2021. The winner of the inaugural award was artist Diane Morin.

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